Day 38

The wife is back, as of last night, which is a cause for celebration.  We did so by watching TV and playing with the dog.  We are white people in our late 30s, after all.  (Well, she's not in her late 30s, but I am).  We also drank a little bit of what turned out to be maybe the worst bottle of wine I have ever bought.  A South African Pinotage, acquired at Whole Foods for a price that should get you something decent.  It tasted a little like I imagine the chemical spray they put on leather furniture to keep it supple would taste if it were turned into a liquid.  Really really horrible.  I have to find the name of it, so I can caution people off buying it.

I had to eat a late dinner which is not good for my attempts to lose weight.  Any time I eat later than 7:30 I feel like I'm fatter the next day.  My body hasn't had time to burn it off.  And then the wine was in there too.  We're going to Puerto Rico in June so I'd like to trim down a little bit before then.

Next to my computer I keep a piece of paper where I jot down names of books I want to buy.  Whenever anyone recommends something to me, whenever I come across something on the web that sounds interesting, whenever I think of a book I once had but have no more and want to reacquire, I write it on that piece of paper.  I write large and fast and at various angles, so it fills up haphazardly but nevertheless at this moment it is nearly full.  And a few weeks ago I bought a new bookcase for my office.  That means I actually have spare room right now, which is a rare and exciting occurrence.  Of course I can't just fill the whole thing up immediately.  All those blank shelves have to last for the next few years.  So I parcel them out slowly.  Some of the books on the list don't get ordered, when it comes time to do so.  The whim that made me write it down in the first place has gone, and my interest has waned.  The Counterfeiters, a book by Graham Greene set in Haiti, for example--that will probably make it.  (I heard about the book watching Anthony Bourdain in Haiti).  Death Comes for The Archbishop, however, which I decided to buy after seeing it as one of the books chosen to appear in the Western Canon lecture series I'm listening to on CD right now--that might not.  Although, yes--it will.  I like Willa Cather.  And I need to read more American fiction.  But then I can always find a reason to buy any book.  ("I need to read more poetry."  "I need to read more books written by women."  "I need to read more books about a man who trains an army of mechanized penguins to lead a slave revolt on a moon of Neptune.")

Binks has come into the office to give me the look.  The look that says "my pee pad has been altered.  Go and see what I have done there.  And reward me.  Reward me!"  I must go.